Music artists

The work of artists active on the net hinges on two concepts: the ramified spatial structure of sound information and the analogies between music files. 'Tetrasomia', for example, is a project by Stephen Vitiello: starting from four 'cardinal points' of sound Ð very short compositions of about a minute and a half each related to earth, water, air and fire Ð the surfer is guided to other sounds on the net, such as the frequencies from orbiting satellites or the twittering of certain birds that live in remote corners of the globe. The tracks do not cancel each other out during listening but can be layered and activated together form a small cross-section of sounds from the world put into a personal form. This sound panorama is possible thanks to a number of contributions outside the creation of the artist, who becomes a new point in a network concentrating the experiences of others.

A similar concept lies behind the sound sculptures of Atau Tanaka, who in 'mp3q' shows a file of addresses processed into a three-dimensional textual structure where the user constructs a form of polyphony by making the files sound in a certain order. The artist intends the user to contribute to the work by pointing to new addresses and this request for cooperation breaks down the traditional barriers between artist and audience. This direct interaction mingles the roles of 'creator' and 'user', thus enabling real development of ideas which draw their strength from the fact that they are created and approved by the public.

In 'Siren's Voice' by the media company 'plinq', the user is invited to take part in the plot of a story by locating its missing parts hidden in exchange networks. The story is structured so that some parts are located in tracks with apparently ordinary titles distributed on Peer-to-Peer networks and which can be recognized by working together, which enables the story to be completed. These search mechanisms have a structure of data flows which only materialize in the minds of those involved in the interaction. The antipodes of this approach is the art of constructing software showing real images inside the abstractions that are files and producing a sort of microscope showing the normally invisible processes of the formation of blocks of digital numbers.

'Minitasking', by German duo Schoenerwissen, follows this principle, working on a particularly large data flow generated by the Gnutella network. Coloured 'balls', as the artists call them, represent the content of the file in size and colour, bringing out their intrinsic instability by dynamically mapping the data involved.
(info from:http://www.neural.it/english/adonnammp3.htm)